Fortnite’s graphics card support is changing

Fortnite's graphics card support is changing

Fortnite’s graphics card support is changing

Fortnite’s PC system requirements have always listed DirectX 11 compatibility as a key feature, but the game has nonetheless supported older graphical APIs, such as DirectX 9, but that changes with the release of Season 10. 

With Fortnite Season 10, Epic Games plans to drop support for these legacy APIs, a change which will enable the developer to refocus more of their development efforts on more modern APIs and streamline their development and testing efforts moving forward. With this move, Epic Games hopes to “further optimise the Fortnite experience for all players.”

DirectX 11 has been with us since the release of Windows 7, which has been with us since July 2009. This means that PC gamers with a graphics card from almost any time in the last decade should be unaffected by this change, as their hardware will already support DirectX 11. 

Dropping support for legacy APIs is not an uncommon occurrence, with World of Warcraft recently dropping support for DirectX 9 while Planetside 2 has moved from a DirectX 9 render to a modernised DirectX 11 renderer. 
 

Fortnite's graphics card support is changing

While some users may be impacted by this change to Fortnite, it is worth noting that the game never officially supported pre-DirectX 11 hardware to begin with, making players with pre-2010 graphics hardware lucky that they were able to play the game for so long. Moving forward it is unknown whether or not Epic Games plans to bring DirectX 12 or Vulkan support to Fortnite.     

You can join the discussion on Fortnite dropping DirectX 9 support on the OC3D Forums.Â